Although the Greek word “cross” (stauros) originally meant just a stake, and the Romans kept large stakes permanently planted at places of execution, the available textual evidence from the Roman period points strongly to the use on the stake of a patibulum or crossbeam in crucifixions to spread and suspend the victim’s arms. Although the basic shape [...][Continue Reading...]

Crucifixion was used by Romans for punishing non-Romans from the end of the first century BC. By the time of Jesus, the regulations governing a crucifixion had become relatively standard in the Roman world. The following description is taken from Vassilios Tzaferis (1985), the archaeologist whose excavations in Jerusalem in 1968 discovered the only known physical [...][Continue Reading...]